In this video, I'll show you the pros and
cons of both high-speed sync flash and
normal flash when shooting location portraits.
Hello, I'm Gavin Hoey and you're watching
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The camera store that's got everything for
us photographers and today you join me
on location at the Gatwick Aviation
Museum as you'll probably see and here.
We're right next to Gatwick Airport.
I'm going to do some portraits using flash and
you might think that means high-speed
sync flash, and it really is a great tool,
but is it the best tool for the job? Well
I'm going to do a couple of situations
where it works really well, and a few
where you don't really need it.
So let's get some lights set, let's get a
model in, let's get shooting. So to help
me out today, I've got the amazing Chloe
she's going to be the model for this shoot,
and we're going to start with high-speed
sync, because that's probably what you're
going to use in a situation like this. And
high-speed sync has a couple of uses, I'm
really only going to look at one and
that is for a shallower depth of field.
I've got and f/ 2.8mm lens, that's what I
want to shoot at,
but normally I'd be limited to my
camera's flash sync speed of 250th
of a second, and as a result if I shot at
those settings, I'd end up with a really
bright sky, that doesn't look too good.
Well that's where high speed sync comes
in, because I can go faster than my flash
sync speed by simply pressing the
high-speed sync button on my remote
control. With that pressed, I can go all
the way up to 8,000th of a
second. I don't think we need it today,
it's overcast and really breezy, so I'm
gonna go for about a 4,000th of
a second shutter speed. if I take a
picture at 4,000th of a second
without flash, here's how it looks. So now
there's detail in the sky, but Chloe is
clearly underexposed and high-speed sync
flash, really simple, I'm just going to use
that to fill in the shadows on Chloe's
face. So turn it on, and well this is
where high speed sync slightly comes
unstuck, because I can't meter for this,
I need to work it out by trial and error.
So let's start in the middle of the
range, maybe one eighth power see how
this looks,
here we go Chloe, look towards the light
for me and that looks just a little bit too
bright. So I'm going to turn down the
flash, until I get it exactly how I want
it, and with a little bit of jiggling
around I found a nice balance 2,000th of a
second f/2.8 ISO 200 and my flash, the
1/32nd power. Let's take some shots like
this. Okay Chloe, here we go.
So a big location, and in this case I
don't need high-speed sync,
here's what we got we've got.
Chloe stood against the plane so the
background is really close.
There's no shallow depth-of-field going
on here. I've also swapped lenses. I've
gone for a wide-angle lens. The wider the
angle of lens, the more depth of field
you get so even. If I were shooting at
f/2.8 with a wider angle lens, my depth of
field would still be a lot. So there's no
point doing shallow depth of field,
high-speed sync. So let's use normal
flash, and that has a few advantages.
Firstly I can actually meter it if I
want to. That's a good thing.
It saves a bit of battery, it saves a bit
of power, it recycles a bit quicker. Lots
of good things, and you get more power
from standard flash, then you do
high-speed sync. So if you need to
overpower the Sun, that's the way to go.
However the technique is exactly the
same. First thing to do is to establish
the exposure without flash, so let's turn
off my trigger, and I'm still in manual
mode. I'm going to go for f/11 aperture.
Why not? I'll be at my flash sync speed of
250th of a second, let's see what we
get without flash. Here we go, and I've
got pretty good detail in the sky,
so that looks fine for me. The other
advantage of not using high-speed sync
flash is I can use my flash meter to
work out how much light comes out of
this flash. So let's get it in closer,
let's get the flash meter, and we're
properly underneath Chloe's chin, and
I'll adjust it until it reads f/11 and
when it reads f/11, I know I've got
exactly the right amount of light and I
can shoot away! Here we go.
Although I actually love using
high-speed sync flash, a wider lens or a
smaller aperture is a great way to show
a lot more of the location.
So it breaks down like this, if you want
a lovely dreamy blurry background in
your location portraits, you're going to
need the right lens, and the right
aperture to make that happen. Then
high-speed sync is a great tool, because
it just simply works, plus it avoids all
that old-school messing around with
neutral density filters. But if your
model is close to the background, or
you're using a wider angle lens, or you
simply want the absolute maximum power
from your flash, then forget about
high-speed sync flash. Stick to normal
flash, because that does a great job. So
that was great fun, and worked really
well and hopefully you realize now that
high-speed sync is a great tool but it's
not always the best tool. It's whatever
you need to get the shot you want. Now if
you've enjoyed this video, don't forget
to leave me a comment below. If you want
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I'm Gavin Hoey thanks for watching.